Watch now: https://www.youtube.com/live/WNAjaHqjzIg?feature=share
A conversation between author Jerry Craft and Library Division Chief Peter Petruski about Jerry Craft’s novel “New Kid,” and the newest installment “School Trip.”
Recorded April 27, 2023.
Reminder: this is a spoiler-filled podcast.
Season 4, Ep.2: "Things Fall Apart"
For this episode we read the 1958 novel by debut novel by Nigerian author Chinua Achebe. The novel became the first work published in Heinemann's African Writers Series in the UK, starting in 1962. “Things Fall Apart” is the first book in Achebe’s trilogy about African history, and has been read by high schoolers for generations as the archetypal modern African novel in English. It is a staple book in schools throughout Africa, is widely read and studied in English-speaking countries around the world, and continues to be listed on included on “most important books” lists whenever they’re published.
Episode Links
Tell us what YOU think about this book, or anything else you’re reading, in our GoodReads or Facebook groups, or talk to us on twitter using the #BigBookPodcast hashtag. If you’d like to make a suggestion for future reading send us your recommendations on the Big Book Club Podcast page on the Arlington Public Library website.
We're Reading
Watch now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBd2X5yMOWg
Dr. Mihesuah discusses the importance of authenticity in Native literature and film. She references her own novels and food books, while also highlighting popular books and films written by those who claim to be Native and are not and do not use Native speakers nor writers.
Recorded November 15, 2022.
Watch now: https://youtu.be/2m-9t8UznbQ
Since the violent protests by white supremacists in Charlottesville, VA in 2017, the threat of renewed political agitation by neo-Nazis has haunted public safety officials. There may be some lessons to be learned by looking into our own local history.
Why did George Lincoln Rockwell, a former American Navy veteran, choose Arlington County as his base of operations for his racist and anti-Semitic American Nazi Party? This and other questions are answered in Clark’s illustrated talk, presented in partnership with the Center for Local History.
A longtime journalist in the Washington, D.C. area, Charlie Clark writes the weekly “Our Man in Arlington” column for the Falls Church News-Press. He has just published his fifth book, a memoir of adolescence titled “My Gap Year–Reinterpreted.” Last year he published “George Washington Parke Custis: A Rarefied Life in America’s First Family,” with McFarland Books. With the History Press, he has published “Lost Arlington County, Arlington County Chronicles,” and “Hidden History of Arlington County.” In July 2019, he retired as senior correspondent for Government Executive Media Group, part of Atlantic Media. He previously has worked as an editor or writer for The Washington Post, Congressional Quarterly, National Journal, Time-Life Books, Tax Analysts and the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges. He lives in East Falls Church with his wife Ellen.
Watch now: https://youtu.be/f_-gQ2tX4GQ
Márquez is a marine science education expert, currently finishing her doctoral degree at Curtin University. Born in Puerto Rico and raised in Mexico, Melissa has worked at the forefront of marine science education and communication for over a decade, hard at work combatting the misinformation that’s rampant in ecological fields — and paving the way for Latina women like her in science.
Márquez is also the author of the “Wild Survival” kids’ adventure series.
Watch now: https://youtu.be/qmbYwJRDlD8
Alex Myers, author and transgender advocate, discusses his work to help communities become more gender inclusive. Myers teaches English at Phillips Exeter Academy. Since coming out as transgender in 1995, he has worked with schools to help them support transgender students and become more gender inclusive. Myers is also a novelist whose work explore gender, identity, and history. His novels include “Revolutionary,” “Continental Divide,” and “The Story of Silence.”
Alex Myers most recent book, “Supporting Transgender Students: Understanding Gender Identity and Reshaping School Culture” is a guide to help schools learn the basics of what gender is and why it matters in education.
Nature belongs to all of us! Three local naturalists discuss the joys and challenges of their work in the field:
Watch now: https://youtu.be/GXVmhoMudCk
Melody Starya Mobley is the first Black female forester in the U.S. Forest Service, where she worked for 28 years. Her love for animals and nature began as a child and led her to study wildlife management and later forest management. During her career at the Forest Service, she worked in conservation, watershed restoration, and forestry resource plans. Since retiring from the Forest Service, Melody has become an assistant science and math educator and done volunteer work with the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s STEM Volunteer Program. She lives in Arlington
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Musa Murawih is a global birder who grew up in Sudan to a Bedouin family. He learned from a young age to identify all living things found during his family’s travels. Since immigrating to the U.S. in 1999 he has travelled to 41 U.S. states in pursuit of birds and other natural wonders. He is a Board Member of the Audubon Society of Northern Virginia and has co-led a birding and nature program at Upton Hill Regional Park in Arlington.
Yolanda Villacampa was born in Washington, D.C., and began her career in nature as a seasonal park ranger in Arlington, VA, where she was raised. Her parents’ origins are from two Spanish-speaking countries, Spain and Ecuador. She is a part-time park naturalist with the Arlington County Nature Centers, and a 10-year Arlington Regional Master naturalist volunteer.
A surprisingly open memoir co-authored by the married duo of a world class oncologist and a cancer survivor about love, pain, hope, strength and resilience while navigating the overwhelming breast cancer advocacy movement.
Watch the video: https://youtu.be/5JPqRkpBzp4
About the Authors:
Liza Marshall left her law practice in 2005 to focus on her family and Hope Connections for Cancer Support, of which she is a founding member. In 2006, at the age of forty-three, Liza was diagnosed with triple-negative breast cancer, the most deadly form of the disease. Throughout her treatment and beyond, Liza has been an active volunteer at Hope Connections and other local non-profits, serving on boards, directing development campaigns, and supporting a variety of communities and missions.
John Marshall is a medical oncologist and a professor at Georgetown University, and an internationally recognized expert in gastrointestinal cancers and the development of new treatments for cancer. He has been outspoken on controversial issues in cancer research, including his criticism of the dominance and success of breast cancer advocacy and research at the unfortunate expense of other specialties.
About the Interviewer:
Bethanne Patrick is a Washington Post book reviewer and the editor, most recently, of “The Books That Changed My Life: Reflections by 100 Authors, Actors, Musicians and Other Remarkable People.”
Often blamed for the rising rates of obesity and diabetes among black Americans, fast food restaurants like McDonald’s have long symbolized capitalism’s villainous effects on our nation’s most vulnerable communities. But how did fast food restaurants so thoroughly saturate black neighborhoods in the first place? In “Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America,” acclaimed historian Marcia Chatelain uncovers a surprising history of cooperation among fast food companies, black capitalists, and civil rights leaders, who—in the troubled years after King’s assassination—believed they found an economic answer to the problem of racial inequality. With the discourse of social welfare all but evaporated, federal programs under presidents Johnson and Nixon promoted a new vision for racial justice: that the franchising of fast food restaurants, by black citizens in their own neighborhoods, could finally improve the quality of black life. Synthesizing years of research, “Franchise” tells a troubling success story of an industry that blossomed the very moment a freedom movement began to wither.
Marcia Chatelain is a scholar, speaker, and strategist based in Washington, D.C. She teaches courses in African American life and culture at Georgetown University. When she’s not in the classroom, she’s on the road, talking to audiences about our nation’s pressing and pervasive social issues, including racism, universities and the history of slavery, as well as activist movements.
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